all the industries and services connected with fashion: design, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, retailing, advertising, communications, publishing, and consulting-- in other words any business concerned with fashion goods or services.

Merchandising

the planning or behind the scene clerical work in fashion.

Sales promotion as a comprehensive function including market research, development of new products, coordination of manufacture and marketing, and effective advertising and selling.

Marketing

a total system of business activities designed to plan, price, promoted, and place (distibute) products and services to existing and potential customers.

Style

the characteristic of distinctive appearnce of a garment -- the combination of features that makes it different from other garments.

Fashion

a style that is accepted and used by the majority of a group at any one time, no matter how small that group.

High Fashion

a new style is accepted by a limited number of fashion leaders who want to be the first to adopt changes and innovation in fashion.

Mass Fashion

consists of styles that are widely accepted. These fashions are usually produced and sold in large quantities at moderated to low prices.

Design

a particular or individual interpretation, version, or treatment of a style.

Style Number

a number assigned by manufacturers and retailers to each individual design produced.

Taste

refers to prevailing opinion of what is and what is not appropriate for a given occation.

Classic

a style of design that satisfies a basic need and remains in genereal fashion acceptance for an extended period of time.

Fad

a fashion that suddenly sweeps into popularity, affects a limited part of the total population, and then quality disappears.

Trend

the general direction of movement of fashion.

Silhouette

the overall outline or contour of a costume or garment; also called the shap or form.

Details

the individual elements that give a silhoutette its form or shape.

Texture

the look and feel of material, woven or nonwoven.

Fashion Cycle

the rise, wide popularity, and subsequent decline in acceptance of a style.

Stages of the Fashion Cycle

Introduction

Rise

Acceleration

Mass Acceptance

Decline

Obsolescence

Fashion Cycle: Introduction

fashion innovators purchase from the retailers who "lead" fashion.

Fashion Cycle: Rise

when the new orginal design is accepted by an increasing number of customers.